It's official: March Madness comes to October every year starting this year. A one-game wild-card round in each league is a done deal. Now baseball is guaranteed at least two win-or-go home playoff games every year, and we will know the date of those knockout games far in advance, allowing for the rare opportunity for baseball to do advance promotion for big-event viewing.
You might not have known this -- I didn't know it: Tony La Russa has won more games than any coach or manager in any American sport the last 60 years. Now, this is obviously not a fair comparison when it comes to other sports. Baseball teams play so many more games.
This week, SI.com will analyze the offseason plans for each team in a division-by-division format. Wednesday will preview the National League and Thursday the American League. Teams are listed in order of finish in 2011.
ST. LOUIS -- Now it can be told what St. Louis manager Tony La Russa did at the end of his worst managing night in the big leagues. He didn't stop managing after World Series Game 5 ended, a game that had been so embarrassing for him that he twice could not properly communicate which reliever he wanted throwing in the bullpen, a breakdown that once left him standing on a World Series mound and greeting one of his pitchers by saying, "Oh, what are you doing here?"
Tonight, we will get exactly what this World Series, this postseason and this baseball season deserve: the first World Series Game 7 in nine years. With this game, this postseason ties the major league records for most double-elimination games (four, set in 1981 and tied in 2001 and 2003) and most total postseason games (38, tying the record set in 2003), making it arguably the greatest postseason in the Wild Card Era (the 2003 World Series was over in six games), if not in baseball history.
ARLINGTON, Tex. -- Maybe the biggest games the Brewers won this season were the final two games against Pittsburgh. With those wins, Milwaukee secured homefield advantage in the Division Series -- a key factor, as the Brewers won Game 5 in a walkoff at Miller Park to advance to the NLCS.
After a day of rain, the Rangers enter Game 6 in St. Louis on Thursday night one win away from the first world championship in franchise history. Created as the expansion Washington Senators in 1961 and moved to Texas in 1972, the Rangers are the oldest of the eight major league clubs to have never won a championship, and their 50 consecutive title-less seasons rank behind only those of the Cubs (103) and Indians (63) among active streaks. Three longer droughts have ended in the last seven years with the Red Sox (85 years), White Sox (87), and Giants (55) each winning their first World Series since before expansion came to the majors.
Short of an injury, everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong for the Rangers in Saturday night's Game 3. Their pitchers were awful, their defense committed three errors, they were victimized by an awful blown call by first base umpire Ron Kulpa -- and they lost 16-7 putting them on the wrong side of the recent history in which the winner of a tiebreaking Game 3 went on to win 16 of the last 18 World Series that were tied after two games. Still, the Rangers could have shrugged that off as one bad loss if not for one thing: Albert Pujols. He turned in the greatest single game performance by a hitter in World Series history in Game 3, going 5-for-6 with three home runs, six RBIs, four runs scored, and 14 total bases, tying the World Series records for hits, homers, RBIs, and runs, and breaking the Series record for total bases.
After two tense games in St. Louis, the World Series resumes in Arlington on Saturday night with the Cardinals and Rangers tied at one game a piece. Of the last 18 World Series to open with a two-game split dating to 1969, the winner of Game 3 went on to win 16 of them, the two exceptions being the Orioles in 1979 and the Yankees in 2003. No other game in those 18 Series had nearly as strong a correlation with the eventual Series outcome. So, Saturday night's Game 3 is a big game for both teams, arguably the most important non-elimination game of the Series. The Rangers, who stole Game 2 with two runs in the top of the ninth, are looking to build on that sudden swing in momentum, while the Cardinals are hoping that Friday's day off and the change of scenery can help them shake off that dispiriting defeat. Of course, momentum in baseball is only as good as the next game's starting pitcher.
ST. LOUIS -- Albert Pujols launched a 94-mile-per-hour fastball to deep right field, tracking the ball closely as he left the batter's box, his eyes not even blinking as he ran toward first base.
ST. LOUIS -- A check swing is a violent motion. A hitter begins to unleash a forceful cut at the baseball, only to decide at the last possible instant to arrest his accelerating momentum and torque as his lower-body swivels toward the speeding baseball.
According to recent history, the Cardinals' Game 1 win at home Wednesday night was extremely significant. The last 10 teams to win Game 1 of the World Series at home have gone on to win the Series, a streak that dates back to 1993, and seven of the last eight Game 1 winners, regardless of where they played, went on to become world champions, the lone exception being the 2009 Phillies, who won Game 1 on the road but lost to the Yankees in six.
St. Louis Cardinals struck first in baseball's World Series on Wednesday, beating Texas Rangers 3-2 in game one courtesy of a pinch-hit from substitute batter Allen Craig.
The 2011 World Series matchup is set, and for the second year in a row, it's one that nobody expected.
His 100-mile-per-hour offering had not just been hit for a home run but pulled down the leftfield line, and Tigers ace Justin Verlander could only laugh. He admitted later that he had "out-thunk" himself by throwing another fastball to Rangers rightfielder Nelson Cruz, rather than pitch to his weakness with another breaking ball, but recently there have been few pitches the 31-year-old Dominican hasn't driven with authority.
Interleague play has been around for 15 years, but this year's World Series opponents, the Rangers and Cardinals, have met just once before, in a three-game series in Texas in 2004. They thus enter the 107th World Series with a relatively clean slate, adding something of a throwback quality to the series for those fans who accuse interleague play of destroying the novelty of potential World Series matchups.
Is this the World Series we've been waiting for? Is the longest wait for the best day in sports about to end?
Rangers starting pitcher Derek Holland had a seven-run lead when he took the mound for the fourth inning in Game 6 of the ALCS. This being the Postseason in Which Starting Pitching Doesn't Matter, Holland would not even qualify for the win.
MILWAUKEE -- A standing ovation had greeted him in the batter's box, but now Prince Fielder looked confused. Umpires' arms arose around the field. Someone had called time -- who wasn't immediately obvious -- and the sold-out Miller Park crowd continued to serenade the Brewers' All-Star first baseman. Whether it was an enticement for him to re-sign as a free agent or just a farewell tribute thanking him for his service, didn't quite matter at the moment, given the numbers on the scoreboard.
The St. Louis Cardinals defeated the Milwaukee Brewers 12-6 in Game 6 Sunday night to win the National League Championship Series.
The Brewers' victory in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series was huge for two reasons. First, it guarantees that the series will return to Milwaukee, which is particularly significant given that the Brewers had the best home record in baseball this season and are 4-1 at home this postseason. Second, it prevented them from falling behind 3-games-to-1 in this best-of-seven series, a hole only 8 of 72 teams have ever climbed out of in major league history.
Following their 11-inning loss on Wednesday night, the Tigers are the first team in this year's League Championship Series to face elimination. On Thursday afternoon, they'll send Justin Verlander to the Comerica Park mound to try to stave off the gloomy history of teams that have fallen behind 3-games-to-1 in a best-of-seven series.
Shortly after 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday night, the Tigers, already trailing the American League Championship Series 2-games-to-0, fell behind the Rangers in the first inning at Comerica Park. Just twenty-four hours later, Detroit could be tied at two-games each in the ALCS. Tuesday night's 5-2 win gives the Tigers a chance in Wednesday's afternoon affair to knot the series and turn it into a best-of-three with ace Justin Verlander slated to pitch Game 5 on Thursday.
Baseball is a child's game, or so it's wrongly written -- not by people who've never seen baseball, but by people who've never seen children. Children don't play well together, can't work toward a common goal but will -- hallfway through a game that they're hopelessly losing -- pick up the ball and go home. Professional baseball isn't child's play. Professional golf is.
MILWAUKEE -- Postseason baseball has been in session for more than a century, yet not before Monday had a player ended a game with a walk-off grand slam. That came courtesy of the Rangers' Nelson Cruz, who hit an 11th inning slam to win Game 2 of the American League Championship Series.
Having lost their travel day to Sunday's rainout, the Rangers and Tigers head to Detroit for Game 3 of the American League Championship Series with the Rangers leading two games to none. How significant is that edge? Of the 21 teams to go up 2-0 in a best-of-seven LCS, only three failed to win the pennant: the 1985 Blue Jays, the 1985 Dodgers and the 2004 Yankees, the only team to blow a 3-0 lead in baseball history.
1. So much for the importance of starting pitching in the postseason. The Texas Rangers are proving there are many roads to the World Series, not just one. What they are doing is certainly unconventional -- with starting pitchers checking out of games early -- but it has worked.
Rain postponed Game 2 of the American League Championship Series on Saturday, but it was still an eventful day for the LCSs. The Brewers did Harvey's Wallbangers proud by out-slugging the Cardinals, 9-6, to take a 1-game-to-0 lead in the National League Championship Series, and the Tigers lost yet another outfielder to injury.
Taking a look at Sunday's playoff action ...
It's hard to imagine that the League Championship Series could live up to the excitement provided by this year's Division Series, but then we didn't think the Division Series could live up to the final few days of the regular season, and they totally did. That's only one reason, and the weakest to be sure, that I expect both series to go a full seven games. So, I hope you all had a restful morning, because this year, the postseason doesn't believe in off-days.
The Texas Rangers' defense of their American League title continues on Saturday with the first game of the American League Championship Series against the Detroit Tigers. The Tigers, it should be noted, just eliminated the team with the American League's best regular-season record in the Division Series without the benefit of a quality start from their ace, Justin Verlander, and they represent a significant hurdle for the Rangers. Detroit went 38-16 (.704) over the final two months of the regular season, 20-6 (.769) in September, and 6-3 against Texas on the year, with the Rangers' three wins all coming in games started by Alexi Ogando, who has been moved to the bullpen and won't start a single game in this series.
The Brewers and Cardinals don't seem to like each other. That much was clear when benches cleared during a game in early September, an incident triggered by a heated exchange between Milwaukee's Nyjer Morgan and St. Louis' Chris Carpenter. That tension and the familiarity of an intra-division rivalry with 18 games each season add some intangibles to what seems to be a mostly even matchup, tilted slightly to the team from Wisconsin.
MILWAUKEE -- The ball Nyjer Morgan struck off Diamondbacks closer J.J. Putz was bounding its way up the middle and toward the outfield, but his celebration didn't wait for the formality of Carlos Gomez to round third and score the game-winning run.
Now that they've dispatched the Yankees in five games, is it enough for the Tigers to take the same approach to the ALCS matchup against the Texas Rangers that they used in beating up the AL East champs? What issues came up in the Division Series that they need to address, and what changes are necessitated by their new opponent? Here's some changes the Tigers should make for the series against Texas.
In the middle of July, Ivan Nova was pitching for Scranton-Wilkes Barre, a Triple-A team, and Doug Fister was pitching for the last-place Seattle Mariners, an approximation of a Triple-A team. Tonight they get the ball in Game 5 of the ALDS with the entire seasons of the Yankees and Tigers reduced to how well they handle a sudden death game.
ST. PETERSBURG -- You could hear the bass thumping and you could smell the champagne. The party was just getting started inside the visitor's locker room at Tropicana Field, but standing outside the clubhouse in the dark stadium tunnel was the famous CEO, dressed impeccably in a jacket and tie. "We've got a ways to go still," Nolan Ryan said moments after Texas' 4-3 win over the Rays in Game 4 of the ALDS, barely cracking a smile. "They view this as a three step process, and they just accomplished the first step."
The two National League Division Series both face a possible conclusion tonight as the Phillies and Brewers each need just one win to advance to the NLCS. The Phillies enter Game 4 against the Cardinals coming off a close win in Game 3, and (including the Texas Rangers' ALDS win this year over the Rays), teams that break a 1-1 tie in a best-of-five series with a win in Game 3 have now won 29 of the 37 such series in baseball history and 20 of the 24 Division Series that fit that description. The Diamondbacks, meanwhile, avoided a sweep at the hands of the Brewers on Tuesday night to close within 2-1, but still face a history in which 89 percent of the teams that lost the first two games of a best-of-five series also lost the series.
Five thoughts on the Division Series:
The Texas Rangers advanced to the American League Championship Series (ALCS) on Tuesday after sealing a 3-1 win over Tampa Bay Rays in the first round of the Major League Baseball (MLB) playoffs.
All four Division Series are in action tonight, and three of them involve teams facing elimination. The Diamondbacks return home hoping to avoid a sweep at the hands of the Brewers, while the Phillies and Cardinals will break a 1-1 tie in St. Louis, and the Rays and Yankees hope to force a Game 5 after losing tie-breaking Games 3 on Monday night.
Five cuts on the Division Series:
"You don't want to face him in a short series."
Surely, you've heard. The end of the world is coming Saturday. A Christian-based Internet ministry tells us that doomsday unfolds this weekend. It has something to do with Noah and floods and the 17th day of the second month of the biblical calendar.
Jay Rothman calls them "the wow guys," the trio of broadcasters headlining the now downscaled main set for ESPN's coverage of the first and second round of the NFL Draft on April 28-29.
GOODYEAR, Ariz. -- At the age of 61, and back for his 18th try at managing a World Series winner, Cincinnati manager Dusty Baker, a guy who in the first place didn't want anything to do with managing, has become one of the game's great treasures, even more so now that colleagues Bobby Cox, Joe Torre, Lou Piniella and Cito Gaston retired after last season. Baker blends old-school baseball values with a hipster's love of what's current, constantly engaging his young Reds players in conversations about music, fashion, cars, travel and just about anything else.
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) -- Cliff Lee's last pitch to the Texas Rangers was too much.
updated: Wed Nov 03 2010 16:51:00
San Francisco hosts a parade in honor of the Giants' World Series win against the Texas Rangers.
ARLINGTON, Texas -- Down here, deep in the heart of Texas, the Rangers aren't dead yet. They ran into a tandem of "buzz saws'' (Rangers coach Clint Hurdle's words) in Matt Cain and Madison Bumgarner -- a pair of 20-something pitchers for the Giants who shut Texas down in Games 2 and 4 -- and (possibly worse for the Rangers) also continue to face the Giants' winning exacta of momentum and mojo.
Cliff Corcoran breaks down each day's game throughout the postseason.
Cliff Corcoran breaks down each day's game throughout the postseason.
ARLINGTON, Texas -- With a passing glance, Bruce Bochy can seem almost cartoonish.
SAN FRANCISCO -- You never want to make too much out of one game. After all, Texas lost Game 1 of the American League Championship Series in catastrophic fashion, blowing a five-run lead at home and looking utterly overmatched by the moment. They promptly rolled the New York Yankees in four of the next five games. It's always tempting, in the middle of a seven-game baseball series, to make one game mean too much.*
SAN FRANCISCO -- SI's Joe Lemire provides ongoing commentary and analysis throughout tonight's World Series Game 1 between the Rangers and the Giants.
This is only the second time in 90 years that two teams never to win a World Series for the city they currently represent will meet in the Fall Classic. The only previous time was in 1992, when the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Atlanta Braves.
If you placed a heavy bet on a Texas Rangers versus San Francisco Giants World Series before the season, I suggest upholstering the interior of your new private jet in a creamy taupe. Back then, the Giants had 16:1 odds to win their first championship since 1954, and the Rangers were 20:1 longshots to win their first ever.
It's the moment for which San Franciscans have been waiting an eternity. Since the Giants moved West before the 1958 season, they have played in three World Series and lost them all. Now the team few expected to be here has the chance to do what no San Francisco baseball team has ever done and bring home a championship.
Cliff Corcoran breaks down each day's game throughout the postseason.
So this is what it feels like. This is what it feels like to watch the baseball team you have been following for 38 years reach its first World Series, dominating a long-time nemesis to get there. This is what it feels like to watch your alma mater knock off the No. 1 team in the BCS standings, whipping a longtime rival that only three years earlier had spoiled a dream season not once, but twice. And how was your weekend?
The 2010 postseason continues to prove the stat-head maxim that power, rather than smallball, is the path to beating good postseason pitching. In the NLCS, the Giants scored 19 runs in taking four of six games from the Phillies; 11 of them involved at least one extra-base hit, and the series MVP, Cody Ross, picked up that honor by roping three homers and three doubles in 20 at-bats. Extra-base hits by Ross and Buster Posey were critical to Game 1 and Game 4 victories, and it was Juan Uribe's eighth-inning home run that provided the winning margin in Game 6. Meanwhile, the Rangers scored 38 runs in their six-game triumph over the Yankees and 30 of them involved at least one extra-base hit. In all, Texas pounded out 24 extra-base hits, including an LCS-high nine home runs. It may be counterintuitive, and it certainly runs counter to received wisdom, but it's true: big ball, not small ball, wins in October.
It's important to learn from your mistakes, and given that we overwhelmingly picked the Yankees and Phillies to repeat as pennant winners, it seems we have a lot to learn. Here, then, are five lessons to be gleaned from the Rangers and Giants' LCS victories.
On the bright side for the Giants, there wasn't an earthquake in Game 5. So at least that part of their agonizing postseason history was avoided.
Cliff Corcoran breaks down each day's games throughout the postseason.
1. The Giants and Phillies didn't play yesterday, but it was a bad day for both clubs, anyway. The Texas Rangers wrapped up the ALCS with a 6-1 win over New York, thereby saving ace Cliff Lee for Game 1 of the World Series instead of having to use him in an ALCS Game 7.
SAN FRANCISCO -- On the play that will live in infamy for the Giants in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series, the ball barely left the infield. Phillies center fielder Shane Victorino hit a bounding grounder to first base that ricocheted off Aubrey Huff and onto the outfield grass in shallow right-center. Runners on second and third both scored, the second and third runs for the Phillies in the inning and the game, playing a deciding role in Philadelphia's eventual 4-2 victory.
Several players have enhanced their reputations this October, though none more so than the top two guys on this list -- the unheralded Cody Ross and the much-heralded Cliff Lee. Ross has done what no one expected, and Lee has done exactly what he did last postseason, undoubtedly en route to a stratospheric salary in 2011. Here is my list of 25 men who have enhanced their statures so far this October.
SAN FRANCISCO -- The clubhouse of a losing team is usually library silent, as if a stodgy old woman behind the reference desk is shooting a stern glare down her bifocals at everyone in the room. Whispering only, please.
Cliff Corcoran previews each day's games throughout the postseason.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Much of Charlie Manuel's charm stems from his meandering soliloquies, folksy and good-natured, often with his insight buried amidst his rambling replies to seemingly straight-forward questions.
SAN FRANCISCO -- 1. Yankees manager Joe Girardi made himself the story in ALCS Game 4. It was bad enough that he put the go-ahead run on base intentionally in the sixth inning -- it was David Murphy who got the Bonds treatment. He had to compound his mistake by leaving the game, and perhaps the Yankees season, in the hands of A.J. Burnett, a guy who hadn't pitched in 17 days, hadn't beaten a winning team in 147 days and is the pitching equivalent of a loaded dump truck with no brakes trying to get down a steep mountain road.
Cliff Corcoran previews each day's games throughout the postseason.
As the clock ticked toward the minute at which the Yankees would have to board their bus to the airport for their plane ride back to New York on Saturday night, it was clear that Alex Rodriguez had done the math and wanted to make one thing clear: The ALCS, which the Rangers had just tied at 1-1 due to their easy 7-2 Game 2 win, was now a five-game series. This was Rodriguez's message, and we know that because he made sure to mention it in almost every answer he provided to the reporters who huddled around him.
NLCS, Game 2, Giants lead 1-0 Time: 8:00 p.m. EST TV: FOX Starters: Jonathan Sanchez (0-0, 1.23 ERA; 13-9, 3.07 ERA) vs. Roy Oswalt (0-0, 5.40 ERA; 13-13, 2.76 ERA)
NLCS Game 1: Tim Lincecum (1-0, 0.00 ERA; 16-10, 3.43 ERA) vs. Roy Halladay (1-0, 0.00 ERA; 21-10, 2.44 ERA)
ALCS Game 2: Phil Hughes (1-0, 0.00 ERA; 18-8, 4.19 ERA) vs. Colby Lewis (0-0, 0.00 ERA; 12-13, 3.72 ERA)
1. What sort of greatness will we see next?
Breaking down --and ranking -- baseball's Final Four in five key categories...
Coming off a Division Series that featured a no-hitter by Roy Halladay, two additional shutouts by Tim Lincecum and Cole Hamels and great work by Matt Cain, Cliff Lee and C.J. Wilson on top of that, the anticipation of a series of taut postseason pitching duels is palpable. The baseball world is holding its breath in anticipation of Saturday's NLCS opener, which will feature the man who won the past two NL Cy Young Awards, Lincecum, against the favorite to end that streak this year, Halladay.
Cliff Corcoran previews each day's games throughout the postseason.
As his Giants teammates created mayhem around him in celebration of their playoff series win over the Braves, rookie catcher Buster Posey stood sedately in the corner of the clubhouse
Even last Thursday, when Yankees manager Joe Girardi's strategy of sacrificing an AL East title in order to set-up a first-round matchup with the Twins -- his club's traditional whipping boys -- instead of with Cliff Lee and the Rangers was close to paying dividends (New York then had a 2-0 series lead on Minnesota), Girardi refused to admit that this had ever been his strategy at all. In fact, he wouldn't even allow that he hadn't minded winning only the wild card if it meant that his players, many of whom are well past their salad days, received some much-needed late-season rest. "This thing has taken on legs of its own," he said, indignant. "I didn't really try to rest our guys. Just to talk about it, Alex Rodriguez played 13 days in a row. He played 15 out of the last 16 games. So yes, we were trying to get guys healthy. We had guys getting shots, we had guys that had a bad knee, bad wrist. But rest, no. We were trying to win every game we could."
With the first round of this year's major league baseball playoffs now behind us, here are five things that we learned from the just-completed Division Series that could reverberate in the coming League Championship Series.
1. Cliff Lee gets to take the ball again at Yankee Stadium in a postseason game, this time for ALCS Game 3 after beating the Yankees there in World Series Game 1 last year. And when he does, Lee will take an ever expanding reputation as one the greatest postseason pitchers baseball ever has seen.
The Texas Rangers might be moving slowly Tuesday night when they play the Tampa Bay Rays in the fifth and deciding game of their American League Division Series. The Rangers will be carrying the weight of five decades of failure. It's a heavy load.
On the strength of six extra-base hits, including two doubles and a homer by Evan Longoria, the Rays took Game 4 of their AL Division Series from the Rangers 5-2 and pushed the series back to St. Petersburg for a decisive Game 5 Tuesday night. It was another lesson in postseason baseball for the traditionalists. Forget manufacturing runs: ball go far, team go far. The win sets up a rematch of last Wednesday's Cliff Lee/David Price matchup. That doesn't bode well for Tampa Bay, which managed just a solo homer off Lee in seven innings, and which has hit .193 with a 564 OPS against Rangers' southpaws in this series. The Rangers surely expected to advance over the weekend, and now find themselves trying to avoid being the fourth team, and the first since the 2003 A's, to blow 2-0 lead in the Division Series.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Mariano Rivera got the last out, sealing yet another October triumph. Jorge Posada trotted out to mound, and the Yankees came out of the dugout in a businesslike manner to shake each other's hands.
Cliff Corcoran breaks down each of the days' games everyday during the postseason.
Roy Halladay just joined the most exclusive group in baseball history. Prior to Wednesday night, there had been 220 postseason series played in baseball history since the creation of the World Series in 1903. If those Series averaged five games each, that meant that more than a thousand postseason games had been played and that on more than two-thousand occasions a pitcher started a postseason game with the chance to throw a no-hitter. Yet in all of those games, from among all of those pitchers, a group including most of the games greatest, only one had actually held his opponent hitless for nine innings: Don Larsen, who did so in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series. Wednesday night, Halladay joined him.
SAN FRANCISCO -- The click-clack of cleats filled the corridor as Bobby Cox left the interview room and returned to AT&T Park's visiting clubhouse.
The first day of the Division Series saw the two No. 1 seeds head in different directions. In the AL, the Rays were denied the lifeblood of their offense -- bases on balls -- by Cliff Lee, who struck out 10 without a free pass in seven innings in leading the Rangers to a 5-1 win. In the NL opener, In Philadelphia, Roy Halladay became just the second pitcher to throw a no-hitter in the postseason, absolutely owning the Reds in a 4-0 Phillies win.
1. Braves pitcher Derek Lowe, watching a television in a concourse at AT&T Park in San Francisco, tried to guess what pitch Roy Halladay would throw Brandon Phillips on a 0-and-2 count while he was one strike away from the second no-hitter in 1,263 postseason games.
TAMPA -- Somehow, it's always surprising how quickly momentum can swing in a short series in October. How everything can change with one pitch and one swing. The Rays -- AL East champs, winners of a league-high 96 regular season games -- strutted into Game 1 as the consensus favorite to win their opening-round series against the Rangers. Then a few strange things happened at the Trop on Wednesday afternoon: Tampa Bay's defense, a bedrock of the team, abandoned them. David Price took the mound and looked nothing like the Cy Young candidate he is. And a pair of mid-season acquisitions, Jeff Francoeur and Bengie Molina, got two very big hits for Texas. "We both struggled earlier in the year," Francoeur, who drove in Texas' first run with a second-inning double, said after the game. "All that don't mean crap in October."
It's résumé season for managing hopefuls. Three new openings were created on D-Day Monday with the firings of the Mets' Jerry Manuel, the Brewers' Ken Macha and the Pirates' John Russell. The Braves' Bobby Cox is retiring, as is the Blue Jays' Cito Gaston. Three teams -- the Cubs, Marlins and Mariners -- have interim managers. And according to Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, legendary Cardinals manager Tony La Russa is driving cross-country deciding whether to return to St. Louis. So this promises to be one of the most interesting managerial offseasons ever. With that in mind, here are a few folks who could pop up on one or more lists, from the most famous to the more obscure.
Baseball's post-season starts Wednesday with six of the eight playoff teams facing off in best-of-five series.
To mark the start of the baseball postseason, I've put together this postseason quiz, which is both a short test about baseball in October and an homage to pitcher-poet Dan Quisenberry, whose nickname might well have been Postseason Quiz, given how often his Royals made the playoffs -- four times in six seasons -- in the days when such a thing was still possible in Kansas City.
Cliff Corcoran will break down the day's games everyday during the postseason.
The Reds are making their first postseason appearance since 1995 on the strength of their first winning season since 2000. That sudden turn-around is one of the best stories of the season, but the Phillies look ready to ruin the ending. Having won the last two National League pennants, the Phillies are heavily favored to win their third straight NL flag, and given the top three in their rotation and the way their offense is clicking right now, they have to be considered the favorites to win the World Series as well. The Reds may very well be the second-best team in the NL field, but beating the Phillies would be a sizable upset.
If the Yankees didn't officially punt a chance at a second straight AL East title in order to ensure an ALDS matchup against the Twins, as opposed to the Rangers, it was rather clear as the regular season drew to a close that they didn't mind very much if that was how things played out. In the Yankees' four games after they clinched a postseason berth on Sept. 28, even though they then trailed the Rays by just a half-game, manager Joe Girardi gave starts to the recently bad Javier Vazquez and the never good Dustin Moseley, and inked names such as Greg Golson, Ramiro Pena and Eduardo Nunez on his lineup cards.
You've come to the right place. This is where you cut through the clutter. All you need to know to get ready for postseason baseball this year -- and the possibility for the most meaningful World Series matchup this side of Cubs-Indians -- is right here: the 10 most important postseason questions.
The Yankees were in Boston over the weekend and they did not look like a team poised to win another World Series.
Five cuts from Sunday's action:
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